Her new pattern, called Kickin’ Stash ( how great of a name is that?) is it! It takes scraps – as small as 1.5″ wide – and lets you use them up and make an amazing quilt! (For those easily intimidated, note that there are no seams to match up except for the center.)

This pattern is so hot off the presses that Beth doesn’t even have copies of it yet! However, she has placed it for sale on patternspot.com. You can find it HERE. Click through, it will be worth it – you can see three different colorways – brights, falls, and purples. I shamelessly borrowed the photo below from EPQD’s blog – it’s the ‘before quilting’ picture of one of her quilts. The photos on patternspot are much better – this quilt looks fantastic!

Let me share a little something with you. The cover quilt? On her pattern? (A tiny bit of it is shown in the blog hop button below.) She didn’t piece the blocks. Nope, they’re from a block exchange. 40 people each made 4 blocks. Out of scraps and a bit of background. Isn’t that a great idea for a block exchange? Or for a group to make one block per person and then assemble them as a group quilt? Or for comfort blocks? Or, if you turn the colors around and have a colored background and white bars, an unusual signature quilt.

I love this pattern. I can imagine it in any color – so join the fun, hop around, and grab a couple yards of background, an overflowing scrap basket, and get to cutting!

Beth has organized a blog hop to celebrate the release of her newest pattern. You can find those of us participating at:

And, of course, let’s not forget the official blog of EvaPaige Quilt Designs over at at Quilting Hottie Heaven. Hop on over there and congratulate her on being a cover girl, will you? But, by all means, don’t enter the giveaway she’s having over there that closes on Friday…you just might win something!

Even though I don’t have the pattern yet, I’ve cut 12 blocks from my pink scraps and am in the middle of sewing the last piece onto each quarter block. My sewing machine is calling me!

My child is blessed to be the daughter of a quilter. She’s been around sewing since her youngest days. When she was 15 months old, she would play with ‘balloon’ pins in my pincushion. At 2.5, she’d bury herself in fabric. Before 4, she’d designed a quilt and helped to make it. She’s been using sewing machines since she was 5. I always decided that if I could involve her in my hobby(obsession), I could have more time for my hobby(obsession). And have more quality time, and encourage her creativity, and… the list of rationalizing goes on…

Last summer, she won a pattern at Quilt in a Day’s store – Cinnamon Swirl. She decided this was going to be her first quilt, because it was her pattern. Fine by me, because as it’s a log cabin variation, it’s something that she could do.

In the spring, we found a Honey Bun she liked – Birdie by Moda. It had been out for a while at that point, but we were lucky enough to find some matching yardage for the borders at the same shop.

Slowly, slowly, we worked our way through the quilt. Learning about WOWies (wiggly seams that must be ripped and/or resewn), and easing fabric, and lining up edges. Pinning. Rotary cutting, which still scares me but she does it better than pinning.

At the end of May, her quit looked like this: 5 blocks done, 10 blocks in progress, 5 blocks unstarted. Quilts had to be turned in Sept 5!

When the day came that the top was done we rejoiced with glee! And sent it to school. DD’s teacher last year had a helper that is a quilter. I was sure that she’d get lots of prasie for it, and I was right.

It took us a while to figure out how to quilt it. There were a few false starts, and I ripped out several blocks for her while we figured out how she could best tackle the quilting. We ended up with something that she could do, though it wasn’t either of our first choices. It was her first quilting project ever, and she did good. Sure, there’s variability on the stitch length, and there were a few toe catchers that had to be fixed, but she did it. Herself.

She finished it just in time (with prodding from me). We’d entered her quilt into the San Diego Quilt Show that was last week. The night before the quilts had to be turned in she was stitching on the label. She did everything on this quilt. She sewed it, quilted it, and bound it all on her own. I helped with cutting, pinning, and basting, but made her try those skills too. Pinning seems to be her worst subject!

She got it done, and her entry was hanging there for everyone to see! They had the kid’s quilts in a different place this year.

But, they backed right up to the featured quilter’s area this year. Eleanor Burns was the featured quilter this year. She was so kind to my daughter! Knew the quilt, and said she’d been mentioning it in all of her Strip Tzzz lectures. We ended up staying for one of the lectures, and Eleanor recognized my daughter in the audience. Called her up front. Then Eleanor proceeded to toss her own quilt up on to the crossbar, tug the drapes apart, and flip my daughter’s quilt through from the back for all to see. Loved it!!!

Afterwards Eleanor went around the corner with us and had a picture taken in front of the quilt with my daughter. So great!

To recap – for two years, at various quilt shows around the area, I kept looking at the Soda Pop by A Quilter’s Dream. I finally bit the bullet and bought it in January. Her sample is made of neutral batiks – a bali pop (in her case) or jelly roll. As I was staring at my stash I ended up deciding to make the quilt out of light blues and greens.

The colors remind me of vintage Coke bottles – that blue green reminds me of summers when I was a kid – sometimes my sister and I would get to split a Coke in the evenings. The original quilt was browns and tans – maybe she was inspired by the cola itself?

This is the quilt I should have cut with my GO! but didn’t. I was working with random bits of fabric from my stash and decided it would be easier to cut them out singly with my rotary cutter. WRONG! Ok, for some of the the rotary cutter would have been better, but I ended up cutting enough strips out that it would have made most of the pieces easier. The whole quilt is made out of 1.5″ squares, 2.5″ squares, and 2.5×4.5″ rectangles…I could have easily cut and subcut with dies I already own. Lesson learned.

I quilted it with straight lines – not something I usually do, but decided to do this time around.

I think this one’s destined for the guild’s quilt auction in November. (Pause for a bit of self-criticism here) I tend to like more value contrast than this quilt has. I thought I was stretching myself by working in a tighter value constraint that I usually do. I added some darker fabrics – both in blues and greens as well as some darker blue- and green-grays in order to find some depth. They’re there, and scattered around, so they’re not doing as much as I’d hoped. In addition, I’m seeing some not-quite-straight lines – little bumps in the straight lines where they intersect, even with use of my Pfaff’s IDT system. I’m hoping that when I wash it they won’t be as obvious.

On to the next quilt!!! I have a spiderweb (made of the SAME fabrics, but adding a deep blue for the stars) that I absolutely love pinned and waiting. Unfortunately, I think it’ll languish for a bit.

Darling daughter is ready to quilt her first BIG quilt ever (at 36×49, it’s much bigger than the doll quilts she’s got under her belt) and we spent some time this morning trying to figure out what kind of quilting she can do on it. Stipple needs work, stencils are a bit better, and she doesn’t want straight lines. We’ll figure it out…

Remember my Soda Pop quilt? I’m not sure why the pattern is named that. Battle of geography? Because you need loads of caffine to keep cutting and sewing and ironing?

Well, it’s been slow progress. After days of cutting came days of sewing, then a day of ironing. Then all the quarter blocks were done. All 224 of them. I’m sure that you will understand that I didn’t make ‘extra’ blocks so that I could re-balance the color/value of the quilt.

Instead of sewing the quarter blocks into full blocks, I just laid everything out on the floor.

I will admit that this required me to actually clean the floor…when I’m making a quilt there are fabric piles everywhere – auditioned-yet-rejected fabrics, used-it-but-don’t-need-more fabrics, pieces-destined-for-the-scrap-basket fabrics, and the like. And since I did such a good job of cleaning off the floor, I actually vaccuumed it!

Then I took some pictures, and re-arranged some blocks, found one that I’d mis-pieced (out of 224, I’m OK with that) and fixed it. Stared at it some more.

And came up with something like this:

My friend turns everything into a Value vs Color exercise. This quilt is the perfect example of that. It’s all lighter blues and greens, but I ended up throwing some darker pieces in that I had to handle carefully – put mediums next to them and they are fine, but put lights next to them and they get jumpy. (Jumpy is a personal term…for when blocks or fabrics are grabbing more attention than they’re supposed to.)

Now, on to assembling! I’ve got a few days of this, I’m sure, as I turn 224 blocks into 56 blocks, into 8 rows, and then 1 quilt top.

I have occasionally tested patterns and quilts for a few quilt designers. It lets me try out new patterns, see how other designers think and write, and lets me edit something other than my own writing.

I was quite surprised to get an email out of the blue for someone I’d tested for before, almost a year ago. Three of us took up the challenge, and a challenge it was because she needed edits and a finished quilt top in a week. All zigging and zagging aside (see my post on Murphy’s Law!) I got it done in 6 days.

While I can’t show you the whole quilt (yet!), below is a super close-up of part of the middle. The multicolor yellow print does have sequin-y things on it…your eyes are not decieving you.

I like this pattern – I think it’s really flexible…it can be made in loads of sizes, colors, and from any type of fabric – charm packs, layer cakes, jelly rolls, FQs. Just add a yard of this and a yard of that to all those scraps and watch it come together!

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About Aspen Hill

Welcome to Aspen Hill! I'm Deb. Quilter, lover of fabric. Fan of completed projects. Quilt Pattern Designer. My blog is my space where I get to share quilting, sewing, and other creative pursuits. Come back often!